I lifted my beer, chugged, and then set it down on the counter. “Fine, tell me.”
Her hair fell forward, covering her right eye, and she pushed it aside with one finger. “Delara wasn’t at the club a few nights ago.” I knew which night because she’d been shooting a game of pool with me. “And Liam looked edgy, and I’m guessing it was because she wasn’t there. I’ve seen them together at the club because, as you said, I’ve been there a lot lately.” Her eyes shifted from me to her feet and her shoulders tensed. “I’d been in a pissy mood and drinking more than I should.”
Fuck, here it comes. I could feel the unease radiating off her.
“Umm, the head’s a little fuzzy, but I ended up at Liam’s table, and he served me a bunch of drinks and—”
“Fuck, you got wasted with a vampire? Did you read your witch handbook at all? The part where it says ‘never get wasted around a vampire’? Even I know that, and I’m not a witch.”
“I fucked up, okay,” she retorted.
“Yeah. You did. So, what’s the deal? You’re worried Delara is going to kick your ass for hanging out with her man? Give you a clue here, she doesn’t give a shit about Liam.”
“Not exactly. But, he kissed me. I was mad about—well, some guy. Listen, I’m having an all-around crappy couple months. I was drunk. Liam was tempting and—”
“He’s a bloody vampire, of course he’s fuckin’ tempting. That’s his goddamn job,” I shouted.
She remained quiet. Her hands clasped together as she moved to lean against the wall and crossed her arms. Unfortunately, I knew there was more.
“This isn’t about kissing Liam, is it? What else?”
She cleared her throat then said, “I, ah… had a drop of his blood.”
“Fuck!” I turned around, grabbed the edges of the counter and growled. Jesus. I should shove her out the door and let her fend for herself. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? “Why?” I ground out.
“It was bad timing.”
I swung around so fast, I knocked my beer over with my elbow and the liquid spilt onto the counter, dripping over the lip onto the floor. “Bad timing? Are you for real?”
She tensed, eyes narrowing. “Listen, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I was—”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
She avoided my eyes. “Fine. Let’s make this simple. I was plastered and screwed up. Happy?”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” I ran my hand through my hair as I walked to the door, stopped, and walked back.
Liam was a serious pain in my ass, a dangerous pain in the ass. There may be a truce between the Scars and him because he was behaving and not killing any humans, but he had to know feeding a witch his blood would end that truce.
I stopped pacing and met her eyes. “Do you realize what one drop can do?” She nodded, but I said it anyway. “You begin to crave blood. Thirst for it. Starve for it, and when you can’t deny the thirst any longer—and trust me, you can’t—you consume blood for a second time, and you die. But then, lucky you comes back to life and joins the bloodsuckers, hunting humans, being hunted by us when you kill someone—you know, the joys of being a fucker of the living dead. Oh, but that’s not all—Liam becomes your master. You, his pet. He calls. You come. He says fetch, you go fetch. He says spread your legs…” I stopped when I heard her sob.
“Fuck, Abby. I’m being a dick.” I walked over to her, put my finger under her chin, and tilted her head up so I could see her eyes. “Abby, shit, I’m sorry. But this is bad. You don’t want that life. I don’t think vampires want that life.”
She stepped away from me and walked over to the portrait Danni painted of Balen and stood in front of it. “I heard about him. Balen. He drank from a vampire and fought off the poison. He didn’t Transition.”
“That’s why you’re here,” I said more to myself than to her.
She nodded.
Could she fight it like Balen had? Was it possible? It had taken years for Balen to get rid of the vampire blood in him, and it had nearly driven him crazy. “I don’t know. It was one Scar, Abby. Since the beginning of our existence, we’ve had one Scar try this after consuming vampire blood. And you’re a witch, not an ancient like Balen or immortal. Fighting the cravings for blood can take years.”
She spun on her heels and faced me. “But I won’t become a vampire if I can fight it, right?”
“Not if you can survive it. But that’s unlikely.”
“But we could try?”
I walked over to her and put my hands on her shoulders. “Sugar, it’s not going to work. You’re what, a twenty-year-old witch. It’ll be impossible to fight century-old vampire blood. You’ll either die or turn.”
Her eyes hardened. “I’m stronger than you think.”
Fuck. What the hell was I supposed to do here? She’d turn into a vampire and become Liam’s slave. I didn’t like it, but that was the reality.